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That Lucic-Weise handshake moment? What a bunch of big girl’s blouses: DiManno

The handshake line is a grand tradition and celebrated ritual unique to hockey. It is hockey’s signature.

The post-game handshake is unique unto hockey, a tradition of the sport. Carey Price and Tuukka Rask had no problem with it after Game 7 on Wednesday. The Bruins' Milan Lucic, though, had some issues along the way. (The Associated Press)

My well-thumbed copy of
The Amy Vanderbilt Complete Book of Etiquette
is silent on the subject of hockey handshake protocol.

Venerable Miss Vanderbilt was more preoccupied with stuff like how to set a dinner table, the proper addressing of wedding invitations and “household management in a servantless society.” Safe to say, however, that the maven of manners would not have approved of what transpired at the
end of Game 7
Wednesday night in Boston.

Men behaving badly. Brat-boys. Un-gallant and un-gracious.

The handshake line is a grand tradition and celebrated ritual unique to hockey. Players who’ve just tried to savage each other on the ice are required, per long-held custom, to do the gentlemanly thing. Fans await that singular gesture of sportsmanship. Historically, it’s also part of “The Code,” in an extensively codified sport. And it’s never been too much to ask, even of embittered rivals.

It is hockey’s signature.

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The Bruins, best team in the league this season, were stunned and emotionally gutted following their 3-1 loss. Elimination by Montreal, detested Montreal, was too fresh a horror for conventional courtesy. Milan Lucic fell into line but had words of menace for a couple of Habs, specifically Dale Weise and Alexei Emelin. To Weise, purportedly, a vow to “f-----g kill you next year.”

There have always been apostates who want no part of the observance, a playoff sacrament. Billy Smith, Mr. Whacko-With-A-Stick, generally ducked the practice.

“I’m not a hypocrite,” the Hall of Famer said in 1982. “I do it for money, and there’s too much money at stake. I don’t care if anybody likes it or dislikes it. That’s me.”

Yet even Smith occasionally participated and pressed the flesh of an opposing goalie at the conclusion of a well-fought playoff series.

Kris Draper declined to shake hands with Claude Lemieux in 1996. The Colorado forward — notorious pest and malingerer, a flopper of phony injury — had earlier broken Draper’s jaw, hitting him from behind against the glass. Martin Brodeur and Sean Avery took a pass on each other’s paws in 2008. “Fatso there just forgot to shake my hand,” Avery jeered.

But mostly hockey players assume the position at centre ice, however glancing the mano-a-mano contact. And Lucic wasn’t withholding; more like read-my-lips extemporizing.

As threats go, gonna-kill-you is wildly juvenile, schoolyard yipping. Lucic is way more articulate than that in dressing room conversation. The Twitter thread provides some apparent context — that Andrei Markov had refused to look Bruins in the eye during the formality; that Jarome Iginla had brought up Lucic’s rear, apologetically. “Sorry about my friend ... sorry about my friend ... sorry about my friend...”

But whinging about it afterwards, as Weise did, is suck-y.

What a bunch of big girl’s blouses.

“They had a couple of guys, or sorry just one, that couldn’t put it behind them and be a good winner,” Weiss told reporters. “Lucic had a few things to say to a couple of guys.”

Lucic retorted: “If he wants to be a baby about it, he can make it public.”

Further, Lucic observed that what’s said on the ice stays on the ice.

Weiss has a slippery foothold on the moral high ground. The winger did muckety-mock Boston by pounding on his chest in celebration after scoring a breakaway goal in
Montreal’s Game 3 win
. P.K. Subban unspooled some nyah-nyah semaphoring too. It all contributed to a deliciously entertaining series, with multiple subtexts of drama. We can only hope for more of the same when the Conference final between Montreal and the New York Rangers launches on Saturday.

The provenance of the team handshake is somewhat lost in the mist of time. A troll through the newspaper archives indicates the hockey tradition may extend way back to English settlers in 19th century Canada who preached an “upper-class version of sportsmanship.” It was a hockey-modified tweak on the Marquess of Queensbury rules that once applied in boxing and long pre-dated the Stanley Cup.

Handshakes, back-slapping, the tap on the tush — all became interwoven with the post-playoff salute among hockey players.

The lovely practice took on mythical hues in hockey lore on April 8, 1952, when a bloodied Maurice Richard shook the hand of a battered Jim “Sugar” Henry at the end of the Cup semi-final. The Rocket had been concussed earlier in that game against the Bruins but returned to break a 1-1 tie, skating the length of the ice to beat Henry in the Boston net with the winning goal.

Richard sported a bandage over his left eye, blood trickling down his face. Henry had two black eyes and a broken nose.

The moment was captured in an iconographic image by Montreal news photographer Roger St. Jean.

Gosh, they were warriors, lion-hearts and valiant.

Lucic and Weise? They’re just pipsqueaks.

Correction — May 21, 2014:
This column quotes a tweet that said Jerome Iginla followed teammate Milan Lucic down the handshake line muttering, “Sorry about my friend ... sorry about my friend ...” In fact, Iginla did not say this. The author of the tweet was merely making a joke at Lucic’s expense. See the columnist's take on the correction
here.

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